The Cancer Full Moon showers her silvery light upon the Earth on January 13 at 2:26 p.m. US/Pacific, stirring the conversation around our obligations to family or tribe versus those we carry for our community or society.
Echoes of the past few years may ripple into the present moment, bringing attention to imbalances, relationships, events, or people left unsettled. This lunation sets off the long-lasting and combative aspect of Mars opposite Pluto, considering our ability to move and act freely, how we may bump into others, or if we need to be so careful.
The cosmic receiver dish formed by innovative Uranus, mystical Neptune, and evolutionary Pluto is also triggered by the Cancer Full Moon, such that our dealings with the past may have much more to do with welcoming in significant changes in the world around us than about dwelling in a sentimental shell of “what used to be.” The Sun’s movement into the futuristic sign of Aquarius on January 19 is likely to foreshadow some of the significant changes of 2025 that occur due to Shakti-powered Pluto’s final ingress into Aquarius on November 19, 2024, transcendent Neptune’s ingress into Aries on March 30, for the first time in 150 years, structural Saturn’s ingress into Aries on May 24 for the first time in 26 years, and last but not least, trickster Uranus’ movement into Gemini on July 7, where it has not been since 1949.
Who is coming with us on this adventure—and how—will be the subject of harmonizing Venus’ mid-January interactions with the past of Saturn and the future of Jupiter, suggesting a beneficial weeding out of our social and work spheres, as well as a breath of meaningful new life into karmically significant relationships. We can observe through the river of time that what flows before us may have a predictable shape or pattern for a time. The Full Moon in Cancer reminds us that life isn’t meant to be frozen into a solid cube of meaning.
On January 13, the Moon expands to the most whole reach in her home sign of Cancer, pulling on the tides of the past in the form of memories, long-lost feelings, and the specter of affairs that have been left unresolved. This Full Moon has the potential to dredge up unsettled issues, people, or topics still in process from even as far back as 2019 and 2020 when eclipses brought to the fore the interplay of family (Cancer) and society (Capricorn), our obligations to our foundations and most intimate connections (Cancer) and our duty to larger collectives (Capricorn). This is typical of the conversation between the signs of Cancer and Capricorn, where the inner world and its outer edges must find cohesion. If we have skipped any steps to interweaving these responsibilities, this Full Moon in Cancer could bring an opportunity to acknowledge the consequences of persistent mismatching and shore up our vulnerabilities.
Mars Retrograde
Mars Opposite Pluto
The Full Moon is shining a bright light on Mars opposite Pluto, emphasizing the constraint of our will by larger forces. Due to Mars’ retrograde motion, this is an exceptionally long and significant transit, with exact aspects on November 4, 2024, January 5, 2025, and April 18, 2025. We may discover that previous constraints have been lifted in reality, but our habitual self and thought patterns continue to operate within those fences. Our pain, self-recrimination, or enmeshment with others may entangle us in limits that we have already exceeded. Mars’ retrograde period could allow us to forge a new alliance with our unconscious, spurring us to risk a new way of moving through the world. There may have been great wisdom in previous restraint, but for many of us, it is imperative to make repairs or adjustments that enable a full range of motion and influence.
Mars Retrograde Key Dates
Sun in Aquarius
Sun Conjunct Pluto, Trine Uranus + Sextile Neptune
Though we’ll be feeling the inertia of the past, the point of this lunation is our orientation to the future. The Cancer Full Moon taps into an aspect pattern shaped like a cosmic receiver dish, composed of the three outer planets, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, who have synchronized into a harmonious aspect pattern of great potency lasting from 2025 to 2030. These three together symbolize a process of transforming our notions of reality, our imagination of the human being, and our ideas about the value and purpose or meaning of our world. Even though this sounds like abstract big-picture thinking, there is the promise of embodied and matter-of-fact confrontations with these larger transformations coming very soon. Once the conscious self of the Sun slips into the forward-thinking sign of Aquarius on January 19, many of us will begin to glimpse the precursors of the many, many changes unwinding with the cosmic clock of 2025.
The warmth of the Sun conjoins Pluto (exact January 21) in the early degrees of futuristic Aquarius, providing a chance to connect with and resource into new power and awareness, including awareness of new vulnerabilities. Every step along our spiritual path may involve leaving behind certain liabilities, but tapping into deeper or broader layers of our capacity also brings in new liabilities as the light of expanded awareness casts new shadows. The learning never stops, and Pluto’s evolutionary push reminds us of the necessity of humility—our awareness remains partial, no matter what perspective we occupy.
Venus Square Jupiter + Conjunct Saturn
The social symmetries of Venus in her favored sign of mystical Pisces will measure up the rigid boundaries of Saturn (exact January 18) after making a dynamic square aspect with indulgent Jupiter (exact January 14). This could further stir the pot on our sense of commitment to friends, colleagues, leisure activities, and income streams. More than usual, the closing out of relationships opens the way for fresh life to come in. However, some time may elapse between a decision to end a connection or commitment and moving forward with that decision. Jupiter-Saturn thrives on slow growth and meticulous planning, and this combination also suggests a beneficial reconnection with past acquaintances or a substantial renegotiation or re-enlivening of meaningful karmic connections in our lives.
Mercury Opposite Mars + Square Chiron
Mercury Trine Uranus
As the renegotiation of meaningful connections occurs, the mind sphere of Mercury will lend an eye for strategy while it is in pragmatic Capricorn until January 27, helping us tend to the practicalities of life. We may want to secure the upper hand, and working for win-win scenarios is essential. Mercury will form a tense T-square aspect mid-month, when it squares the longing for wholeness represented by Chiron (exact January 21) and opposes the aggressive fire of Mars (exact January 23). Past pains related to communication, anger, boundary transgressions, siblings, or peers may flare up. Still, innovative Uranus’ helpful trine to Mercury (exact January 23) offers some new insight or new language to bring forth a different outcome if we can bridge the gap between instinctual reactivity and reasoned response. There may be something worth fighting for, but an enlarged perspective seems more helpful, as perhaps the past is not exactly repeating itself at this moment. A different path through the fray can move through the open heart and steadied mind.
The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus famously observed that we never enter the same river twice. We may see the continuity of a river flowing within the shifting bounds of its banks. Still, the river's water is dynamic, always in motion, and continuously remade by unique formations of individual drops. We might think of the quality of time revealed by astrology in the same way. While the Cancer Full Moon with its Capricorn Sun may foreground our history, our past, and the structures that hold us as long as we uphold them, the river of time continues to flow, beckoning us to participate in a living mandala, adaptive and responsive to the Soul’s demands.
Full Moon in Cancer by Moon Sign
The Moon represents the materia of the anima mundi or Soul of the World, symbolic of the sacred body and its interwoven interdependence with all of nature. She describes our deepest vulnerabilities and profound capacity to connect with others. Full Moons amplify energy and emotions, and this one has us pondering our most intimate and public obligations and the appearance of constraints on our will.
Let’s see how the Cancer Full Moon impacts your own Moon placement!
Aries Moon
The struggle for control may feel real under the Cancer Full Moon, but the power you seek may be hiding in a most unexpected place. It may be necessary to reframe your situation thoroughly and step out of a story of struggle into one of swimming skillfully with the tide, Aries Moon, knowing it is safely carrying you.
Taurus Moon
There is a time for walking through life more or less on autopilot and a time for breaking out of the trance of mundane reality. The Cancer Full Moon seems to point to the dissolution of some part of your ego, Taurus Moon, some part of you that may dread loneliness, uncertainty, or unfamiliarity. But this small part gives way to the much larger story your life is meant to unfold.
Cancer Moon
This is your Full Moon of 2025, Cancer Moon! The words of the wild and wise poet Adrienne Rich come to mind: “Prospective Immigrants/ Please Note/ Either you will/ go through this door/ or you will not go through./ If you go through/ there is always the risk/ of remembering your name.” This lunation invites deep reconnection with your intuitive powers, the inner guidance that helps you navigate the world via connection to the unseen you feel so deeply. Don’t forget, Cancer Moon, “The door itself/ makes no promises/ It is only a door.” It is up to you to allow the re-membering.
Gemini Moon
You may feel anxious to have all the details pinned down, to know the entirety of a picture, or to know the Gemini Moon, which may create confusion or unnecessary tensions. The Cancer Full Moon could amplify impatience or grasping for answers, so take some time to soothe your nerves and listen to the dreaming parts of you who know how to work with fragments of information in our fractal cosmos.
Leo Moon
The archetype of the Child or the Sacred Fool, innocent and open to the world of possibilities, is here to accompany you under the Cancer Full Moon. You came here to thrive, Leo Moon! Your wounds don’t have to be the source of your personality or ego, though they can provide strength, wisdom, discernment, and compassion. The Sacred Fool holds all sides of the truth simultaneously, hemmed in by nothing and no one, and such freedom of perspective helps you to weave together wholeness to leap ahead.
Virgo Moon
Black and white, either-or thinking is one of the results of an unhealed traumatic experience. If you find yourself pulled into complex feeling states or drifting into dissociation, Virgo Moon, take a moment to find your breath and slow things down. The Cancer Full Moon invites you to connect to the present moment and remember the body, moving as slowly as you need to be responsive rather than reactive.
Libra Moon
The Cancer Full Moon is firing up your intuition, awakening a powerful knowing in service to your vision, and calling upon you to trust your life path. Libra Moon does not need to imitate others, as you draw from a deep well of wisdom.
Scorpio Moon
The power of surrender is in play under the Cancer Full Moon. Any perfectionist tendencies you have may make a grand appearance, and your triumph may be in not sweating the details, Scorpio Moon, and letting trust open the flow to victory.
Sagittarius Moon
The Cancer Full Moon speaks of your place in the world mattering, Sagg Moon, of the world’s need to resonate through the chambers of your true heart. This lunation seems to prescribe a patient tending of the Soul whispering to you through the darkness of limits you have set for yourself. Its voice is growing stronger and more unmistakable.
Capricorn Moon
In Tibetan Buddhism, the Wind Horse symbolizes the power to rapidly transform material phenomena from negative to positive, from misfortunate to fortunate, and from poverty to prosperity. The Cancer Full Moon can catalyze the Wind Horse within you. As you align with your true nature and connect with your mindstream, the Wind Horse of your vital life energy can guide you through consolidating the changes brought by Pluto’s now completed transit of your sign, Capricorn Moon.
Aquarius Moon
Some of you Aquarian Moons are tenderly molting or dissolving entirely into a new form as Pluto begins a long, slow march through your sign. The Cancer Full Moon offers you sheltering protection from angelic beings, guardians of a higher order who do not wish to stop you from growing but to protect a timely and beneficial transformation.
Pisces Moon
If the Cancer Full Moon should stir up a confrontation, whether within yourself or with others, it provides a chance to tap into emotional maturity. Allow your identification with “being right” or any attachment to the outcome to be shed so that you may lead by example and set the course for how negotiations will proceed. This power can come from remembering that we are all a part of one another, Pisces Moon, and that giving dignity to all strengthens our dignity and integrity.
